


I just want to start a flame in your heart

by irhinoceri



Category: Fallout 3, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fallout, F/M, POV Finn (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 19:03:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10747884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irhinoceri/pseuds/irhinoceri
Summary: Finnrey Fallout AU. Written for the prompt "Reunited" for Finnrey Fridays on tumblr. Based on a post by jakkus-storyteller: "Finn is an ex-Enclave Soldier running from his dark past. Rey is a lonely scavenger searching for the family who abandoned her. Together they scour the Capital Wasteland in hopes of finding a place to call home."





	I just want to start a flame in your heart

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Finnrey Fallout AU](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/286665) by jakkus-storyteller. 



> Lyrics from [Fallout 3 theme song](https://youtu.be/3mccWrc30N0). Various plot points reference F3 quests, notably the main quest and the Broken Steel expansion.

Finn staggered over the broken concrete and looked down across the vast wasteland. From up here the world looked small; the bombed out buildings and ancient skeletons of vehicles scattered over the barren hills were like the tiny pieces of a model train set he had once come across in an abandoned home in a dead town.

He still remembered the hiss and crackle of a radio, in that room, and the yellow, peeling wallpaper that had once been white with a sprinkling of green and blue flowers, but now looked like the inside of an ashtray or a bullet riddled sign. He remembered a rusted red bicycle, lying on its side. An empty baseball glove in the dirt. Skeletons laid out on the threadbare mattress in the bedroom upstairs. Pots and pans, still on the stove, dishes set out on the table.

Layered under that, the distant memories of early childhood, of sun shining through windows and dust motes floating in the air, a song on the radio, a baseball too big for him to grip in his hand, his mother’s cool fingers against his skin as she dabbed his face with a washcloth.

He shook his head, rattling the image from his mind. He returned his thoughts and his eyes to the here and now.

The pine trees poked like jagged, splintered toothpicks from the ground. The segments of crumbling, raised freeway that still stood tall and alone above the remnants of buildings were stark silhouettes against the blue sky.

That sky was the only color in this drab world.

The interior of the Enclave headquarters at Raven Rock, destroyed when the central computer, President Eden, had self destructed, had once been colorful, with its blue glowing lights. He remembered it well. He had grown up there, a child taken from poor wasteland settlers who could not afford to feed him and were not strong enough to fight to keep him, a child selected for the “honor” of serving his country.

This country.

This barren wasteland.

A moment of bitterness passed over him. He had traveled the length and breadth of the wasteland, walking its dangerous pathways many times over, since leaving the Enclave. He had traveled to faraway places, from the ruinous wilderness boglands of Point Lookout down the Potomac to the south and up to the burning bowels of the Pitt in the north.

It all seemed so long ago that he had been one of them; one of the Enclave’s finest. And now Raven Rock, that place that was a home and a prison all in the same, was nothing but a ruin.

Like the rest of this world.

This country.

Finn’s heavy power armor clanked as he walked, slowly, down the rubble path that passed for a road in these parts. Everywhere the wasteland was rubble, but especially so in the far north, where rocky cliffs rose above steep highways that fell away from the hard earth.

_Thank you, my friend._

His mind went to the scavenger, as it often did.

He had met many people, ghouls, super mutants, and other creatures in his travels. Made friends, made enemies, always passing through and passing on. The faces came and went in his memory.

Hers stuck, though. The memory of that face, dirty and careworn as all the rest, yet somehow still incomprehensibly fresh as a morning sunrise, a purified pool in the middle of an irradiated desert, made his bitterness turn to sorrow.

How could he forget her? No. He never could.

_I don’t know your name._

He would never forget the bared teeth and murderous eyes the first time they had met, when she had accused him of being a thief, because he was wearing a jacket she recognized… the jacket of another friend, too soon parted.

He would never forget the first time she had smiled, unguarded, in his presence.

He never wanted to forget how she had looked at him like no one else ever had, piercing the barrier that existed between them as strangers and immediately transforming them into friends.

_Finn, what’s yours?_

He could still see in his mind’s eye the way her hands moved deftly over broken heaps of scrap, looking for salvage, taking apart lawn mowers and motorcycles and vacuums to create vicious weapons that could be sold for caps, bartered for food, or used to defend against the many dangers of the wasteland. The way she could craft a set of armor out of anything was a sight to behold.

He could still remember how those hands had felt on him… her strong grip when she held his hand, her gentle caress when she brushed his arm, his face, his neck…

The kiss she had placed on his forehead, with it a promise of reunion, before she had gone for good.

The weeks since had branded her promise a lie in his heart, fear that she would become another distant memory growing inside his mind.

_I’m Rey._

He didn’t want to admit how much he thought of her still, how every face he saw gave him pause, looking back, checking to see if it were her. But there was no one to lie to out here, save for the wandering yao guai and wild dogs, and himself.

She couldn’t know that he had heard her, for she had spoken to him while he lay in the infirmary at the Citadel, tended to by the Brotherhood medics, in a coma after the events at the Jefferson Memorial. He had lain in that state for two weeks before waking up, and when he did, she was gone.

All he remembered from that time were dreams, and at first he thought that the kiss, the promise, the farewell… was all just another dream. But Elder Organa had confirmed that she had taken her leave of him before disappearing back into the wasteland.

It was her father. The loss of him. She must not have wanted to stick around now that her quest to find him had come to an end. When they had traveled together she had been consumed by the need to find her father, so perhaps she had no further interest in the Brotherhood of Steel and their problems once she had helped to complete his life’s work and the purifier was up and running.

Finn found himself caught up in their war with the Enclave after he awoke. This was his destiny, he thought, as finding her father had been Rey’s. The work wasn’t over unless they could distribute the purified water to the rest of the world, that was the true legacy, after the scientific work was done, after the fight with the Enclave for control of the resources was won.

He wondered why she didn’t think that. She wasn’t around to ask.

She was out there on her own, like before they had met, before they had become nigh inseparable for a time.

If she was still alive.

He thought she was alive.

She must be.

He could feel it, somehow. He could feel her, out there, wherever she was. He believed that… so why was it so hard, so very hard, to believe that he would see her again?

In the night his dreams whispered to him that it was because he was all too used to the reality of losing someone permanently. All he remembered of his mother was her cool hands against his face. All he remembered of his father was big, strong hands wrapped around his tiny ones, cupped around a baseball.

He had been born in a vault, like Rey, though something had forced his parents out of it into the wild world and he had been taken from them too early to remember what it was. But the fact that he was “a vault grown child” made him fit into the genetic ideal of purity that the Enclave wanted for the rest of the world.

The difference between the Enclave and the Brotherhood was simple. The Enclave wanted to eradicate all non-pure humans from the wasteland, to distribute water that would poison those with mutated genes, whereas the Brotherhood sought to provide truly clean water to the wasteland and all its inhabitants. He believed in that, in a way he had never believed in the Enclave, though they had tried to hammer their ideals of genetic purity into his mind.

They would have murdered nearly the entire population just to make a world that was safe and clean for those who were “pure.”

And maybe, when faced with a feral ghoul or a murderous super mutant or a raving troglodyte, Finn could see the temptation in that.

But this was the world, now, for better or worse, and it belonged to everyone. Not just 10% who were lucky enough to come from vaults or from isolated groups such as the Enclave and the Brotherhood.

Sometimes, the Brotherhood and their dedication to old technology and the elitism of their ranks reminded him too closely of the Enclave. Sometimes, he felt the strain of being a part of an organization so closed and confined, and he longed for the days when he had traveled freely, roaming the wasteland with no other goal than to be rid of the Enclave and its maniacally patriotic ways. No other thought than to get away, and to see what else was out there, who else was out there.

Rey must have that life now, he thought. He returned time and time again to the idea that without her father there was nothing to keep her moored in place. Nothing. And no one.

And yet such a thought didn't seem right, no matter how many times he turned it over. It didn't seem like Rey to abandon her father's cause half complete.

It wasn't like her to abandon him.

_We’ll see each other again. I believe that._

When he found her again she was kneeling in the dust, bent over a shriveled wastelander, holding a bottom of water to their desiccated lips.

It was too late for them. Finn knew this even before he drew near. The person, or what had once been a person and was now a shock of bones covered in tatters, would die with or without the drops of water that fell on their blackened tongue. The only reason to give them aid now was so that they might die with the taste of cool water on their lips.

Some might consider it a waste. Some might consider it a necessary mercy.

He knew that Rey understood the hopelessness of the situation and the preciousness of the purified water. He did not question her decision.

He had imagined their reunion many different ways.

He had not imagined it this way.

He approached her in silence, except for the whir and clank of his armor, the clatter of his weapon against his back. A thousand words rushed through his head. He wanted to call her name when he had seen her from a distance, but the shout died on his lips, came out as a whisper.

She reached out and laid a hand on the forehead of the lost traveler, the dying wanderer. Finn saw a crippled arm, blood caked on the remnants of the sleeve, and shook his head. They had been stripped of any useful armor or gear, was missing several fingers, and an ear. Their feet were bare and worn down to the bone, torn callouses forming open wounds with dried pus caked alongside dry dirt. They must have dragged themselves along, half dead, for a long time before falling against a rock shaded by an overturned husk of a bus.

When he approached, Rey looked up, and he saw the gleam of recognition in her eyes.

She nodded to him.

Just like that.

Like she had seen him yesterday.

Like she had expected him to rendezvous with her here.

She turned back to her patient, then. They reached out one hand, three fingers all that were left, to brush against her face.

“You’re an angel,” they said, words choked and slurring as the ability to speak drifted away. “Come to take me away.”

“Shhh,” said Rey, dipping the bottle to their lips again. “You’re going to be fine.”

The water fell in a clear stream but did not stay in its target's mouth; instead it dribbled down the side of the wastelander’s jaw as they let go of life with one last sigh, their head slumping to the side, jerking against the rock.

Rey rocked back on her heels, just squatting there a moment, looking at the body, now devoid of the spark of life. It had been a corpse already when she found it, some would say. Dead but for its ghost, waiting for an angel to help it pass to the other side, if there was an afterlife to find.

Rey dipped her head. Then she carefully replaced the cap on the bottle and moved it to a pouch bumping against her hip. She stood, nodding to herself as she adjusted the strap slung across her chest. Finn saw the insignia of the Brotherhood and the words “Aqua Pura” stamped onto the rough leather of the bag. She had been back to the Citadel at some point, some point when he wasn’t around.

He stepped forward. She was still looking down at the victim of the wastes.

“I’m not an angel,” she said, softly, almost too soft for him to be sure that she was saying it to him.

“Rey,” he said, and that seemed to bring her back to herself, to snap her out of it.

“Finn,” she said, and closed the distance between them. She hugged him, despite his bulky, unwelcoming power armor, and it was an awkward, jostling metallic hug. That made her laugh. He laughed too, reminded of their debates once upon a time over what was better, the protection of the Brotherhood’s heavy armor or the relative agility of the leather armor she preferred. He had always favored the tank-like protection, some things about growing up in the Enclave could not be fully dislodged.

He kissed her forehead and released her.

“You’re alright,” she said, touching his face. Then a torrent of words rushed from her mouth. “When I came back to the Citadel, they told me that you had gone off to storm Adams Airforce base, that you were going to wipe out the last of the Enclave. They said they received word that the attack was successful and the base is now under Brotherhood control, but I couldn’t get any reports on what happened to you, on whether or not you survived the raid. I was headed that way to see if I could find you.”

“Where did you go?” he asked, searching her face. “Why did you leave?”

She dropped her hand down to her side. “I had… some things to take care of. Some… trouble back at my old Vault. I didn’t want to leave you, but I knew we would see each other again. I felt it. A certainty.”

And yet there had been worry in her voice, and her eyes, when she spoke of his mission to the airforce base. He remembered her staunch belief that she would find her father and get answers about why he had left her, her utter faith that if she just kept going, kept fighting, she would end up safe and happy. It was a fake-it-til-you-make-it attitude that carried her through life, across the wasteland, into hell and back.

"And what now?" he asked. "I was headed back to the Citadel."

"Perhaps," she said, looking out across the rolling wreckage of the hills.

"My job with them is done," he told her, realizing how true it was. The Enclave was destroyed. He was a member of the Brotherhood but was free to come and go now. "I could go anywhere."

Ideas of settling down in a nice little house in Megaton, saying good morning to their neighbors each day, raising children, flitted across his mind. Was such a placid, mundane existence even possible for two such as them?

"Well, one thing at a time," Rey said, resolutely. "I won't leave this poor soul out in the open, like this."

They buried the dead wastelander under a cairn of rocks, their progress slow as the sun dipped below the horizon. This was another futile gesture against the harsh reality of life in the fallout. So many of the capitol’s dead were left to rot and fester out under the open sky, left to be torn apart by wild animals after being looted by the pragmatic. But Rey liked to bury the dead, to remember that they were still human, that there could still be goodness and respect in a world gone mad.

A vault girl at heart.

Still, if there had been anything salvageable left on the body of the wastelander, Finn knew that Rey would have taken it before consigning them to the ground. She was kind, not stupid.

_I’m not an angel._

_I’m just a scavenger._

They took shelter that night in a bombed-out house, after peeling rotting boards away from its barricaded door to get inside. All the windows and doors had been hammered over, but there was no sound or sign of life from within. When they entered they saw the bones of the last inhabitant, who had holed up in this place to starve. They moved the body down into the cellar, folding the brittle arms over the rib cage before sealing it into the darkness of underground.

In the living room they set up camp, pulling out supplies and settling in for the night only, not forever like the hapless soul who had come before. Rey pulled out a box of potato crisps and some dried meat and Finn rummaged around in his pack for his favorite meal, the punga fruit that grew in plenty down in the swamplands of Point Lookout.

They lit oil lamps and talked as they ate, telling each other about what had happened in their lives since the last time they had been together. He told her about the fierce campaign against the Enclave, about the last stand at the Airforce base, and she told him about the terrible things that had happened down in the Vault she had once called home.

Despite the gravity of their adventures, Finn felt a great weight lifted from him as he talked to her. Earlier, Rey had helped him out of his power armor, setting it aside before they ate their dinner of meager travel supplies. And like that armor, she peeled away the weeks of loneliness and uncertainty and fear. He felt camaraderie with the other soldiers of the Brotherhood, but nothing like this. When he was with Rey he felt like he was home, no matter where they were.

Rey switched on a small handheld radio and they listened to the soft crooning sounds of a love song whispering distantly through the crackle of static.

_I don’t want to set the world on fire…_

She cupped the radio in her lap, her eyes going distant, and he knew she was thinking of her father, of how he had died trying to save others. How the Enclave had killed him.

_I just want to start a flame in your heart._

Finn reached out and took her hand.

_I’ve lost all ambition for worldly acclaim,_

“Rey,” he said, softly, earnestly, “never leave. Stay with me.”

_I just want to be the one you love…_

“We’ve always been together,” she whispered. “From the day we met.”

_And with your admission, that you feel the same…_

He knew what she meant. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn't enough to be linked in spirit, while wandering alone, trusting in some hopeful certainty that they would see each other again. “I mean it,” he said. “We stick together, we fight together. Live and die together. Not alone.”

_I’ll have reached the goal that I’ve been dreaming of._

“You left me,” she said, her voice cracking. “You went away and they said you might never wake up. I waited, but my Vault, my old friends, they needed me….”

_Believe me._

He squeezed her hand. “I know. I understand.” She had to save them, her old people, even though they had cast her out. It was in her nature, and he loved that about her. It explained a lot. It had troubled him to think that she had simply vanished, too restless to sit by his bedside, and to know that she had gone to help others did a little to relieve the sting of waking up alone, with only a memory of a dream and a promise.

“I just wish you had left word of where you were headed, so I could have found you….”

_I don’t want to set the world on fire…_

Her eyes turned soft as she looked at him in the flickering lamplight. She set the radio aside, stood up and said, “Dance with me,” and he did, even though neither of them really knew how. Not formally. They just hugged, and turned in slow circles around the room.

_I just want to start a flame in your heart._

Rey sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. “I never want to leave you. I’ve missed you,” she said. “I’ve missed this.”

“So have I,” he said, his breath in her hair, the loose tendrils fluttering with his words.

_In my heart I have but one desire..._

He cupped the back of her head in his hand and looked in her eyes as she drew away slightly to gaze at him. He had missed these quiet moments with her, holed up somewhere to rest during their travels, these moments of quiet talking, of intimacy and comfort in an otherwise harsh, lonely world.

_And that desire is you, no other will do._

She brushed her lips against his, closing her eyes. He pulled her in for a deeper kiss, savoring the taste of her mouth, sweet like the punga fruit, salt lingering at the corners.

_I don’t want to set the world on fire..._

She smiled into the kiss, stroking his shoulders as they swayed to the music, holding each other as close as they possibly could. Outside some creature howled, long and low, at the moon, but inside felt as safe and warm as a vault.

_I just want to start a flame in your heart._

* * *

 

_fin_


End file.
